The Twin Towers of Love

Words on a page are irreversible, invincible,
they bury our senses then magnify our sorrows-
twenty six letters are all I have
to make sense of this pain
and fill the canyon between my heart and your head.

Words on a page cannot heal
when mankind’s meanings change-
when meanings change
the journey needs to be redefined,
and old words, and old meanings, have no meaning.

When words are in shock, worlds collapse.
Better to write than do nothing? No!
Better to write than do nothing?
No, better to listen to the silence, and
we all deserve a moment of silence,
shhhhhhhhhhh…
Say nothing. Do nothing. Be still.
Can you hear it -
the whimpering whispers
of falling angels
wrapped in dust,
not angel dust,
but the hot grey ash
of a crumbling civilization.

In one mad moment
those planes licked the windows
of our civilization
and our sense of security
panicked and jumped out of that window,
and fell…
and the world breathed pain
and fear melted our infrastructure
and I asked,

"what use is poetry?
what use is theatre?
what use is music?
what use is art?
what use is fiction?
what use is reality?"

Someone tried to light a candle
but tears kept putting it out
and a child asked, "Did God die today?"
and you asked, "Did love die today?"
and I asked, "Does it matter,
if you don’t lay next me no more?"

You are gone,
extinguished from my life.
I am one dark speck
in a constellation crushed by celestial ash,
like a delicate wave
consumed by its own froth,
like some ancient stain
fossilized into frozen desire,
submerged by the torment
of moment by moment eternities,
sitting on my balcony
waiting for the phone to ring.
It doesn’t.
You are gone.

No more
you and I will merge,
sealed by a relentless tenderness
as it collapses suddenly
into a suffocating
torrent of ash.

You were the valley
of a single petal,
now burnt to nothingness.
Under your skin
the world came alive
and time had no Time
and words needed no Words,
and the twin landscapes of your eyes
will embed you in my verse forever
and my finger trembling down your spine
will always in my mind
split the loveliness of your back
into
two
towers
of
love,
until, after one final moment of loving tenderness,
the freshness of our primal touch collapsed…

I loved you without knowing why,
I loved you without knowing how,
I loved you without knowing doubt,
but the demon in you,
the hermit,
the recluse
extinguished our flame into a nothingness
that words could not stop,
that words could not stop.

Now we all live on Ground Zero,
we all live alone;
we are an endangered species,
we are reason on a broken skyline, and
the day weighs heavy on the sidewalks
of an ashen hell,
and mankind was bitten by the demons of one man,
a hermit,
a recluse-
injecting the world with a toxic nightmare
that words could stop, that words cannot stop.

Stop running from the truth
stop running from each other
stop running from your self,
and stop this military solution
to all your inner problems.

Look through your pupils of fire,
look through you eyelids of ash;
we all breathed the dead with ash in our eyes
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our architecture,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our technology,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our military,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our government,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of capitalism,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our leadership,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of our nationhood,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Christianity,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Islam,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Judaism,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of Buddhism,
and it forced me to deny the supremacy of ego…
the supremacy of ego-

- the supremacy of ego
is what got us into this mess
in the first place!

This place,
standing on the 100th floor
of a crippled civilization:
a civilization built on anger
a civilization built on greed
a civilization built on lust
a civilization built on ego
a civilization built on captions-

Ground Zero is a caption,
a marketing ploy,
sexy today, forgotten tomorrow-
Did the Coliseum have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Pyramids have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Hippodrome have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Haghia Sophia have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Liurong Temple have a one hundredth floor?
Did the Temple of Solomon have a one hundredth floor?

Are these smoldering in a heap of smoking memory?

Words on a page
cannot undo the pain
cannot undo the torment
cannot undo the affliction
These are irreversible,
irreversible;
we as a species are
irreversible.

We thought we were adults,
only to realize we are infants bathing in putrid waters.
We as a civilization thought we were indestructible,
only to find ourselves smoldering
in a heap of smoking memory.

One sting of bitter wretchedness,
one strain of inflamed torment
ripped the heart out of every pen
held in the frightened fingers
of every poet,
and delivered a cry that shattered every city,
butchering the Universal Soul
that had taken 10,000 years to cement
into some tenuous semblance of civilization,
… semblance of civilization.

We are alive
at a time after death,
and after death we pick up the pieces
of angels beaten by Time-
the broken pottery of consciousness,
the burnt paper of creativity,
the speechless mouthing of a language dying of shock:
"Oh my God!"
"This can’t be happening!"
"Unreal!"
"Get outta here!"
"Go figure!"
"No way, man!"

and the answer is not blowing in the wind-
it never was-
it’s in the heart and mind of one mad person
who chose not to leave us alone.

And our answer lies is stillness,
in silence,
in being left alone,
in silence,
shhhhhhhhhhh…
Say nothing.
Do nothing.
Be still.
Can you hear it -
the whimpering whispers
of falling angels
wrapped in dust,
not angel dust,
but the hot grey ash
of a crumbling civilization.
We all deserve a moment of silence.

I never read the papers
and now I understand why-
Where is the happiness in history
Where is the playfulness in history?
Where is the light-heartedness in history?

Where is the contentment?
History is a series of labels
and labels are throw-away lies,
disposable truths,
and our civilization is built on disposable truths,
and whether we like it or not we are caught
between the disposable and the dispensable.

Nothing in this poem is original,
nor is it meant to be.
Originality died 3,000 deaths ago.

Words could not get you back-
they are air.

Words can not replace our civilization-
it is air.

Words on a page are irreversible.
History as labels is disposable
and all we are left with are words-
history is a junkyard of words…
poetry is a junkyard of words…

and our answer still lies in stillness,
in silence,
in being left alone,
in silence,
shhhhhhhhhhh…
Say nothing.
Do nothing.
Be still.
Can you hear it -
the whimpering whispers
of falling angels
wrapped in dust,
not angel dust,
but the hot grey ash
of a crumbling civilization…

The Twin Towers of Love, Australian Poetry by Poet doodis, Australian Poems, Australian Poems, Alexander Doodis
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